Still He Haunts Me
by The Jack of Spades
Summary: A grieving Lulu turns to a form of expression Yuna is starting to try, only to find out that it isn't as easy as it seems. Past A⁄L


A/N: Lewis Carroll reference in here, at the end. Total, total spur-of-the-moment deal here, despite the fact that I have so many other things to work on. Originally I didn't think I'd end up posting this here, but after reading it over I decided it was something I was really proud of, so I thought I'd share it with you all :) 

Also, I haven't played FFX-2, so I don't know very much about the songstress class. Hopefully my little description of it in here is somewhat in-tune with that game. 

"You went into the Farplane and came out miserable," he noted, eying me discreetly, as though my presence would yield a reason for my withdrawal. 

We were in Guadosalam by the lord's manor, awaiting Yuna's return. I'd segregated myself from the rest of the guardians because I was in no mood to talk. Wakka had tried to cheer me up a few moments ago, but all it took was one glance to send him packing. I didn't want to smile; I didn't want to laugh. I wanted to be left alone. Fortunately Tidus and Rikku---the two other noisiest guardians here---had already gone off somewhere together. Yevon only knew what they were talking about.... 

But for some inexplicable reason, Sir Auron, normally as reserved as I was (if not more so), had decided to speak to me again for what was the second time on the entire journey. The last time we had spoken had been back in Luca. 

I couldn't explain why, but I wasn't annoyed with him at the moment, the way I was with everyone else. Well, Kimahri was another exception. I answered Auron as civilly as I could. "The Farplane tends to bring back a lot of painful memories." Something everyone in Spira knew. 

His expression didn't change. "I see" was all he said for the moment. 

He looked as though he was about to turn and walk away, when a sudden flash of curiosity hit me. Since he'd already started talking to me, I didn't feel too uncomfortable asking him something that had been on my mind for a while now. "Wait," I called out to him. 

He turned around, slowly. "Yes?" 

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you. Why you didn't enter the Farplane with the rest of us." 

Auron's eyes briefly clouded over with a vaguely hostile cast, but it passed as quickly as it had appeared. "Why not ask Rikku the same thing? She didn't go in either." 

I refused to let his gruffness put me off, although I couldn't help but feel that it just had, just a little bit. For a moment I felt as though I was talking to myself. So this was what Wakka and Tidus felt like.... "I already know Rikku's reason. I don't know yours." 

Amazingly, he chuckled at me. "I suppose this is what I get for having the gall to ask you something personal in the first place. Very well, then: I didn't go in because of a long list of reasons. One of them is because I don't wish to use the past to discern our course of action." 

"I see." Curiosity was trying to get the better of me, but I bit down on the urge to ask him about the other reasons on his list. 

He turned to leave me by myself again, but not before adding over his shoulder, "There are moments when I see Tidus and am reminded of myself as a youth. Then there are moments when I see you...and am reminded of the exact same thing." 

I watched him slip away from me like water through my fingers. Red water, like his coat, like blood. That suddenly I was filled with a sorrow deeper than what I had experienced on the Farplane. I never forgot what that had felt like. I was drowning in a foreign kind of pain, a kind beyond my years. 

Ever since that moment long ago, there had been something between Auron and I that I was at a loss to explain. We never spoke much to each other, but I often found him walking beside me during some of the lengthier stretches of Yuna's pilgrimage. Or if he didn't initiate the closeness, then I would do it. In both cases it seemed automatic, magnetic, irresistible. We craved each other's nearness, and in having it we shared unspoken burdens and past experiences that were still wreathed in shadows, never to be uncovered. I never told Auron anything about Chappu; likewise, he never told me his secrets (I had found out about the unsent part at the very end, of all times). Still, none of that mattered. We were two halves of the same existence then. I cherished those times with a quiet reverence, savored them like an island cocktail on the shores of Besaid and drunk them similarly. 

I did so even now, three months into what the islanders called the Eternal Calm. 

Yuna and I mirrored each other now. We both fell into seemingly interminable states of depression, just generally moping around not caring about anything that was going on. I was detached from all the celebrating, particularly in the very beginning. I couldn't even muster enough enthusiasm to be of suitable company for Rikku whenever she paid all of us a visit. 

Kimahri never left Yuna's side. He returned to Besaid with her, Wakka, and I and it was here that we would live out our lives, I supposed. Well, at least it was nice to know that everything was over, even though sometimes I perversely wish that it hadn't ended so abruptly. As much as Tidus had tried my patience every now and then, I missed him as much as the others did. And Auron... 

Yuna had taken up something rather unusual one month into the return to Besaid. The villagers called her a songstress now: she wrote many verses while remaining locked up in her home, each one more beautiful and sadder than the last. She visited me once and showed me some of what she'd written. I never told her, but I had read one song before I'd gone to bed that night and I ended up crying myself to sleep. Her loss was evident in every word she'd penned. I ached inside just thinking about it. 

Then I'd be reminded of that similar feeling I felt around Auron way back when. That was the kind of pain a person savored, something sweet in its bitterness. It was a private wound I liked to pick, long since scabbed over. 

At one point I'd told myself that I had to try this songstress thing. I didn't know when that occurred to me exactly, but after it came it grew into a persistent idea. Maybe it would help me some to write down all that I felt, I thought. My feelings did need an outlet. 

That led me to today, which could find me seated at a table in my thatched hut, a scroll of paper before me and something Rikku called a "mechanical pen" in my right hand. She'd given it to me as a present during one of her visits to Besaid. She got Wakka, Yuna, and even Kimahri something too. In the beginning I was fascinated by the little device: it had a silvery button at the top that could be clicked down so the point of the pen could come out. To close the pen, all I'd have to do was press the button again and it would pop back up. Initially Wakka was so fascinated with the object that he'd lapse into repeatedly clicking it whenever he stopped by, to the point when I snapped at him to quit being childish. It was only long after I did that that I realized how hypocritical of me that had been. I did the same thing myself when no one was around. 

But now I was paying less attention to the pen and more attention to the blank page before me. I couldn't think of where to begin to write my grief as Yuna did hers. The words just weren't coming. I kept pushing myself, thinking that there had to be some sort of methodical way of going about this, but I couldn't come up with anything. It only made me more frustrated. 

A knock at the door broke the tension. I got up to answer it. It was Wakka. 

He looked a little concerned. "Hey, Lu, practice starts in a few minutes. I just... You said you would come, ya? You said you wanted to watch." He shuffled his feet. He seemed nervous, of all things.

Then a pang of hurt hit me. I'd been too hard on him recently. During the pilgrimage I remembered taking out most of my stress on him and Tidus. Now that everything was over I'd gone back to the same old habits. I chided myself silently. "I'm sorry. I must've forgotten." Honestly, I couldn't remember promising to watch any practice. I'd been going about without my head for a long time now. 

Wakka straightened out then and gave me a scrutinizing stare. "You know, I wish you'd just tell me what's wrong. You haven't been yourself in months." 

Before I could think, something hit me, touched me right to the core of feeling: a wave of sadness deeper than the floor of the ocean. The sensation was brief, but it stung me viciously. I'd nearly been touched to tears. Wakka was right: I hadn't been myself in a while. I thought a part of me was missing. 

That moment must've left a mark on me, because Wakka noticed right away. "Whoa, Lu, I didn't mean it in a bad way! I just couldn't help noticing! You're always at home, and everyone's worried about you.... Ah, I did it again." His expression turned pained and he brought his hand to his forehead exasperatedly. "Jeez, I've really got a way with words. First Yuna and now you." 

Yuna? I inhaled, trying to bring reality back inside me along with the rush of air. I brushed things off as suavely as I could. "No, it's all right. I'm fine. What about Yuna?" 

"Oh, I stopped by her place a few hours ago. Tried to get her to come outside. Thought the sun would cheer her up, ya? She told me she wasn't interested. So I said something like, 'Well, Tidus used to love the sea, maybe if you spent sometime at the beach you'd feel like he was there,' or something like that. Then Yuna got really upset---I mean, her eyes got all red and she looked at me like I just told her to take a walk off the pier." Wakka paused there, rubbing the back of his neck. "Then Kimahri came and kinda kicked me out." 

"Oh," I said. I couldn't think of anything else. Poor Wakka, he'd always been a little awkward when it came to sensitivity. 

He continued on. "He's all on edge now too, you know? It's really weird. Me and Rikku, we're like the only ones who aren't still upset." 

I tried to console him a little. "Kimahri's just reflecting what Yuna's going through. The three of us tend to hold a lot of things in. All of us lost something; we couldn't share everyone's joy in the beginning." I raised my eyes to Wakka's with purpose. "Remember?" 

His eyes lit up with a recollection. "Oh yeah... Yeah, I remember. Man, sometimes I used to think, 'How could these people celebrate? Don't they know it cost something to get rid of Yu Yevon?' And we were the ones who paid it, with a great blitzer named Tidus and Auron, the legendary guardian, of all people. Yeah, it took a real long time. I guess it's still taking you, Yuna, and Kimahri a little longer." 

Two of Wakka's words rung in my ears. _Legendary guardian._ Huh, what a meaningless term to me. Auron's title had long since slipped my mind as we had started to get closer. I looked at him simply for who he was at the time, not what a hero he'd been to Spira. The grand past didn't matter as much as the present had. It was a strange thing to feel then, because I'd become so attached to memories. 

My silence disturbed Wakka. "Oh no, I did it again, didn't I? That's what, three times?" He looked very cross; he muttered something incoherent then. "I'm sorry, Lu. I won't stick around an' make you feel worse." He started to leave, but then stopped to call out, "Oh, and you don't have to come to practice, okay? I understand." 

I opened my mouth to stop him from leaving, but no sound came out. I couldn't get my throat to work. I watched dumbly as Wakka's hulking form made its way across the sandy streets of the city, on his way to the beach where the Aurochs more than likely awaited him. 

By the time he'd disappeared, I'd found my voice. "I'm sorry," I spoke softly. Sorry for a whole bunch of things. 

Rikku had once told me to loosen up a little, that it would do me a real favor. She'd said the same thing to Yuna too. She'd reminded me a lot of Wakka when she'd done that. _"You guys gotta loosen up!"_

Loosen up, indeed. I felt too uptight, all wound up in knots. 

I trudged back to the table and sat down before the scroll of paper again. I took up the mechanical pen. My eyes fell to its sleek surface. Afternoon sunlight coming in from the window made a smooth streak of brightness linger along its metallic length. Smooth...perfect. Unbound, all one long stretch of sharpness and brilliance. 

I clicked the top and watched the pen pop out with a slight twinge of amusement. I smiled. 

Loosen up. 

I put the pen to the paper and let it go wherever my hand took it. A thin trail of ebon ink etched a path of curlicues over an eggshell surface. As I drew I thought of meandering things, of flowing things, like the ocean waves and billowing clothes and pyreflies and--- 

---And the swing of one supple, muscular arm as it arced through the air, the hand attached to it gripping the hilt of an enormous katana. And a shock of raven hair streaked with silver like storm clouds as the wind caressed it while we crossed the Calm Lands. And a cloud of pyreflies that erupted from the spot where the owner of that arm, that hand, that katana, and that hair had once stood. 

In my mind Yuna's wand twirled and she performed her dance for the final time. I would never see it again but I would always remember.... 

My pen suddenly curved sharply to one side and began the lines for a swirling uppercase S. S for "still," like the silence in my house. S for "still," like something that never truly goes away. Still. 

Like a bolt from the blue, the opening lines for my very first song hit me: 

Still he haunts me, phantom-wise:  
Auron moving under skies  
Never seen by waking eyes


End file.
